Tuesday, 31 December 2013

Michael Spearman of The Sun, says that the £65,000 fine Ferrari received for breaching the team orders ban in Germany will seem like loose change if Fernando Alonso wins the drivers’ title in Abu Dhabi.

“The extra seven points Alonso collected when Ferrari ordered Felipe Massa to move over for him in Germany earlier in the season are now looking even more crucial. “And the £65,000 fine they picked up for ruthlessly breaking the rules will seem loose change if Alonso clinches the title in his first year with the Maranello team. “Red Bull could have switched the result yesterday given their crushing dominance and still celebrated their first constructors' championship just five years after coming into the sport. “That would also have given Webber an extra seven points, leaving him just one behind Alonso.”

The Guardian’s Paul Weaver says that if Fernando Alonso does take the drivers’ title in Abu Dhabi, Ferrari owes a debt of gratitude to Red Bull for their decision not to employ team orders in Brazil.

“If Alonso does take the title next week it would not be inappropriate were he and Ferrari to send a few gallons of champagne to Red Bull's headquarters in Milton Keynes. “While Red Bull should be heartily applauded for the championship they did win today their apparent acceptance that Ferrari might carry off the more glamorous prize continues to baffle Formula One and its globetrotting supporters. “Their refusal to make life easy for Webber, who has led for much of the season and is still seven points ahead of Vettel, means that whatever happens in the desert next week Alonso, the only driver who was capable of taking the championship in the race today, only has to secure second place to guarantee his third world title.”

The Independent’s David Tremayne is also of the opinion that Red Bull may regret not using team orders in Brazil.

“Had Red Bull elected to adopt team orders and let Webber win – something that the governing body allows when championships are at stake – Webber would have left Brazil with 245 points – just one point off the lead. For some that was confirmation of his suggestion that Vettel is the team's favoured driver – which generated an angry call from team owner Dietrich Mateschitz in Austria and was much denied by team principal, Christian Horner. “And it sets up a situation where, if the result is repeated next weekend, as is likely, Vettel and Webber will tie on 256, five behind Alonso.”

The Mirror’s Byron Young has put Lewis Hamilton’s fading title chances down to an inferior McLaren machine and he admits the 2008 World Champion now needs a miracle.

“Sebastian Vettel's victory sends the world title fight to a four-way showdown for the first time in the sport's history. “Hamilton goes there as part of that story with a 24-point deficit to Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, but with just 25 on offer in the final round in six days' time it would take more than a miracle. “Driving an outclassed McLaren he slugged it out against superior machinery and stiff odds to finish fourth.”

Following up the debut of the new, 2007 Lexus LS460 and LS460 L, which were unveiled at the Detroit auto show in January, Lexus has now rolled out the range-topping hybrid version, the LS600h L. The fourth Lexus hybrid model, the LS600h L is the only one to pair the company's electric drive system with a V-8 engine. Lexus puts the combined output of the 5.0-liter V-8 and the electric motor at more than 430 hp (versus 380 hp for the LS460's 4.6-liter V-8). The company claims that the hybrid delivers acceleration on a par with twelve-cylinder luxury sedans while providing fuel economy that beats competitors' V-8s. The LS600h L continues Lexus's philosophy of positioning its hybrids not as fuel-sipping green machines but as the highest-performing, top-spec models in the range. As such, the LS600h L will be the most expensive version of the LS, and will be offered in the United States with the long-wheelbase body only. Whereas the LS460 comes with rear-wheel drive, the hybrid will have standard all-wheel drive. Seating is for only four, with a console between the individual rear seats and power sunshades in the doors. A Maybach-style articulating footrest and a massage function are built into the rear seat, but--strangely--only for the right-side seat. It also features a navigation system that stores its data on a hard drive instead of on DVDs; LED headlights; XM satellite radio with real-time traffic info; and, perhaps most incredibly, an automatic parallel-parking function--push a button, and the car backs itself into the space. As an option, the LS has a pre-collision system that not only uses camera to scan the road ahead for obstacles but also trains a camera on the driver, to assess whether he or she is responding adequately; the system flashes a light and sounds an alarm to warn the driver of a possible impending crash, helps the car respond by quickening the steering ratio and beginning to apply the brakes on its own, and prepares the car by tightening the seatbelts and closing the windows. The LS600h L will hit the road next April, six months after its non-hybrid sister model.

Laguna Beach, California So we're driving a Lincoln Blackwood on the Pacific Coast Highway late on a Friday evening. A twenty-something guy in a stepped-on white GMC Sierra pickup with matching hard tonneau races up alongside, appraises the 'Wood, and gives us an emphatic thumbs up. "Hmmm," we think. "Maybe this is the vehicle that will finally rescue Lincoln from the Town Car demographic abyss." This four-door, four-passenger, sybaritic, seemingly purposeless pickup may not represent the immediate future of Lincoln, but it's an indication of how the division wants to reinterpret the concept of American luxury.

Monday, 30 December 2013

Can you believe that in just one week since its online debut, the new Lamborghini Huracan already received two upgrade kits? The first one was announced by DMC Tuning, while the second one comes from Oakley Design. Of course they are both virtual, but both are showing the amazing tuning capacities of the new Huracan supercar.

According to Oakley Design this is just an initial design they are offering for the Huracan, but it will be tweaked, so most likely the final car will look a little different than this.

The tuner brags it placed orders for two Lamborghini Huracan supercars, so the new tuning kit will most likely be applied to these two cars. However, until we’ll have the chance to see the final tuning kit, Oakley needs to go and see the new Huracan during a private unveiling on January 15, 2014.

Click past the jump to read more about the Lamborghini Huracan by Oakley Design.

Yes, you read that right. Only a couple years after their debut, BMW's 325i and 330i four-door sedans are slipping out the door with nary a wave goodbye. Taking their place are the 328i and 335i four-doors-powered by a 220-hp, normally-aspirated 3.0-liter six and a 300-hp, twin-turbocharged six, respectively. The 328i engine is essentially a differently-tuned version of the 325i/330i's six-cylinder, while the 335i sedan's engine is identical to the one found in the just-released 335i coupe.

Sunday, 29 December 2013

Devo might have sung about freedom of choice, but it seems to be Chevroletâs mantra when it comes to small cars. The 2014 Chevrolet Sonic was already available in seven forms, but at the 2013 Los Angeles auto show, the automaker unveiled another two variants â the 2014 Chevrolet Sonic RS Sedan and the 2014 Chevrolet Sonic Dusk â that will soon be rolling into showrooms nationwide.

Over thundering exhaust noise, I can almost hear Steve Saleen talking loudly behind my right shoulder. With his hands clenching my headrest, he's probably explaining how it is that I've just accelerated to 100 mph before realizing I had so much as pushed the pedal. In a 5500-pound pickup truck.

Nissan has followed up the lightly warmed-up Juke Nismo with the Juke Nismo RS. As we reported last month, the 2014 Nissan Juke Nismo RS has more serious performance upgrades than the non-RS model that went on sale this summer.

Kimi Raikkonen is at the very top end of F1, and it appears that he is also at the top end of pulling women! Some rumours suggest that the Finn is/has been dating the simply stunning Valentina Gioia – an Italian model. She really is a looker, as out gallery shows! CLICK HERE TO REVEAL OUR [...]

UPDATE ON KUBICA’s CONDITION: http://wp.me/p3uiu-11K Renault Lotus F1 driver Robert Kubica has been airlifted to hospital following a car accident while competing on a rally. The incident, described as a high speed accident, left the Pole injured and he had to be airlifted to hospital. His co-driver Jakub Gerber was uninjured in the incident. While […]

As Sebastian Vettel put down his winner’s trophy after holding it up in celebration on the Korean Grand Prix podium, Fernando Alonso tapped him on the back and reached out to shake his hand. It was a symbolic reflection of the championship lead being handed from one to the other.

After three consecutive victories for Vettel and Red Bull, the last two of which have been utterly dominant, it does not look as though Alonso is going to be getting it back.

Alonso will push to the end, of course, and he made all the right noises after the race, talking about Ferrari “moving in the right direction” and only needing “a little step to compete with Red Bull”.

“Four beautiful races to come with good possibilities for us to fight for the championship,” he said, adding: “Now we need to score seven points more than Sebastian. That will be extremely tough but we believe we can do it.”

Indeed, a couple of hours after the race, Alonso was quoting samurai warrior-philosophy again on his Twitter account, just as he had in Japan a week before.

"I've never been able to win from start to finish,” he wrote. “I only learned not to be left behind in any situation."

Fighting against the seemingly inevitable is his only option. The facts are that the Ferrari has been slower than the Red Bull in terms of outright pace all year, and there is no reason to suspect anything different in the final four races of the season.

Vettel’s victory in Korea was utterly crushing in the manner of so many of his 11 wins in his dominant 2011 season. The Red Bull has moved on to another level since Singapore and Vettel, as he always does in that position, has gone with it.

Up and down the pit lane, people are questioning how Red Bull have done it, and a lot of attention has fallen on the team’s new ‘double DRS’ system.

This takes an idea introduced in different form by Mercedes at the start the season and, typically of Red Bull’s design genius Adrian Newey, applies it in a more elegant and effective way.

It means that when the DRS overtaking aid is activated – and its use is free in practice and qualifying – the car benefits from a greater drag reduction, and therefore more straight-line speed than its rivals.

Vettel has been at pains to emphasise that this does not help Red Bull in the race, when they can only use the DRS in a specified zone when overtaking other cars. But that’s not the whole story.

The greater drag reduction in qualifying means that the team can run the car with more downforce than they would otherwise be able to – because the ‘double DRS’ means they do not suffer the normal straight-line speed deficit of doing so.

That means the car’s overall lap time is quicker, whether in race or qualifying. So although the Red Bull drivers can’t use the ‘double DRS’ as a lap-time aid in the actual grands prix, they are still benefiting from having it on the car.

And they are not at risk on straights in the race because the extra overall pace, from the greater downforce, means they are far enough ahead of their rivals for them not to be able to challenge them, let alone overtake them. As long as they qualify at the front, anyway.

It’s not all down to the ‘double DRS’, though. McLaren technical director Paddy Lowe said in Korea: “They appear to have made a good step on their car. I doubt that is all down to that system. I doubt if a lot of it is down to that system, actually. You’ll probably find it’s just general development.”

BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson will go into more details on this in his column on Monday. Whatever the reasons for it, though, Red Bull’s rediscovered dominant form means Alonso is in trouble.

While Red Bull have been adding great chunks of performance to their car, Ferrari have been fiddling around with rear-wing design, a relatively small factor in overall car performance.

They have admitted they are struggling with inconsistency between the results they are getting in testing new parts in their wind tunnel and their performance on the track, so it is hard to see how they will close the gap on a Red Bull team still working flat out on their own updates.

The Ferrari has proved adaptable and consistent, delivering strong performances at every race since a major upgrade after the first four grands prix of the year.

But the only time Alonso has had definitively the quickest car is when it has been raining. It is in the wet that he took one of his three wins, and both his poles.

But he cannot realistically expect it to rain in the next three races in Delhi, Abu Dhabi and Austin, Texas. And after that only Brazil remains. So Alonso is effectively hoping for Vettel to hit problems, as he more or less admitted himself on Sunday.

How he must be ruing the bad breaks of those first-corner retirements in Belgium and Japan – even if they did effectively only cancel out Vettel’s two alternator failures in Valencia and Monza.

If anyone had reason on Sunday to regret what might have been, though, it was Lewis Hamilton, who has driven fantastically well all season only to be let down by his McLaren team in one way or another.

Hamilton, his title hopes over, wasted no time in pointing out after the race in Korea that the broken anti-roll bar that dropped him from fourth to 10th was the second suspension failure in as many races, and a broken gearbox robbed him of victory at the previous race in Singapore.

Operational problems in the early races of the season also cost him a big chunk of points.

Hamilton wears his heart on his sleeve, and in one off-the-cuff remark to Finnish television after the race, he revealed a great deal about why he has decided to move to Mercedes next year.

“It’s a day to forget,” Hamilton said. “A year to forget as well. I’m looking forward to a fresh start next year.”

In other words, I’ve had enough of four years of not being good enough, for various reasons, and I might as well try my luck elsewhere.

There was another post-race comment from Hamilton, too, that said an awful lot. “I hope Fernando keeps pushing,” he said.

Hamilton did not reply when asked directly whether that meant he wanted Alonso to win the title. But you can be sure that remark is a reflection of Hamilton’s belief that he is better than Vettel, that only Alonso is his equal.

Whether that is a correct interpretation of the standing of the three best drivers in the world, it will take more than this season to tell.

In the meantime, if Alonso and Ferrari are not to be mistaken in their belief that they still have a chance, “keeping pushing” is exactly what they must do. Like never before.

Friday, 27 December 2013

Fernando Alonso is still the driver in the best position to win the drivers’ title according to the Daily Telegraph’s Tom Cary.

“Focus and concentration will be of paramount importance and there is none stronger in this regard than Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.”

The Guardian’s Oliver Owen thinks that it is Mark Webber’s title to lose now, and that this may be the Australian’s last realistic chance of winning the title.

“He has driven beautifully. Monaco and Silverstone spring to mind. He has been an uncompromising racer, not giving Vettel or Lewis Hamilton an inch in Turkey and Singapore respectively. Most importantly, he has largely avoided the bouts of brain fade that can wreck a season – his on-track hooning in Melbourne when racing Hamilton being the only exception. But there is a feeling that for Webber it is now or never, that a chance of a tilt at the title may never come again. He is certainly driving as if that is the case and that has been his strength.”

According to The Mirror’s Byron Young, both McLaren drivers are now out of the title hunt after their fourth and fifth place finishes in Suzuka.

“McLaren's title hopes died yesterday in a weekend from Hell at Suzuka. Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton finished fourth and fifth in a Japanese Grand Prix they had to win to have the remotest chance of keeping their title bid alive."

The Sun’s Michael Spearman was of the same opinion, saying “Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button's title hopes were in tatters after a shocker in Japan.”

Brazil’s F1 fever may have overstepped the mark after a local prosecutor threatened Felipe Massa with a six-year jail term if he “defrauds” the sporting public by letting Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso past at Sunday’s grand prix. The story, reported by a local paper and picked up by the Daily Telegraph, is the latest of several anti-Massa reports to emerge from his home country since the team orders controversy at the German Grand Prix earlier this year. The Daily Telegraph's Tom Cary reckons that Massa simply isn't living up to his home crowd's high expectations.

“A public raised on a diet of Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna were simply appalled and saddened in equal measure by Massa’s apparent lack of ambition.”

Marussia Virgin Racing have launched their car to take on the 2011 world championship in a lavish London ceremony. The Marussia name now preceeds Virgin following a major tie up with the Russian sportscar manufacturer and the team at the end of 2010. It has led to the new car being designated as the MVR-02. […]

Los Angeles, which is Maserati's largest market in California, which is in turn Maserati's largest market in the U.S., which happens to be--you guessed it--Maserati's largest market in the world, was the site of the U.S. launch of Maserati's sexy Quattroporte Sport GT. First shown in Frankfurt last September, the Quattroporte Sport GT was conceived as sportier version of the brand's big sedan--if not a more powerful one. With enhancements on the decidedly subtle side, the Sport GT nonetheless should help remedy the car's major malady--the clunky six-speed manu-matic transmission--as the car boasts a reworked gearbox that allegedly shifts 35 percent faster than the frustratingly slow-witted previous tranny. The Sport GT model also gets twenty-inch wheels, suspension tweaks, and special interior accoutrements such as carbon-fiber trim and blue and red stitching for the steering wheel and parking brake. A mean-looking, blackened crosshatch grille also adorns the Quattroporte Sport GT.

Mazda's power retractable hard-top version of the MX-5 roadster, which it will sell alongside the current soft-top version, hits dealers this month. While its official--and extremely literal--name, the Mazda MX-5 Power Retractable Hard Top, is a little ridiculous, cost and weight penalties of less that $2000 and 75 pounds, respectively, aren't.

The subtle whine of the supercharger and the healthy growl of the exhaust motivate you to keep the transmission one gear lower than necessary. The well-damped suspension perfectly modulated the optional twenty-inch wheels over rough sections of tarmac, and the light but communicative steering points you exactly where you want to go. This is a car that inspires you to stop, tap the paddle shifter down to first, and hit the gas for another intoxicating run through the gears, just to experience the blissful marriage of the engine and the fast-shifting manu-matic. Welcome to the new Jaguar XKR.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA â Just like the other small cars coming to market these days, the all-new 2015 Subaru WRX is more spacious and more refined. But the good news is, the 2015 WRX still knows how to play rough, and itâs got a 268-hp engine and trick, new all-wheel-drive hardware to prove it.

Former F1 driver Robert Kubica continues to progress his motorsport career, despite the injuries that mean that he can no longer compete in the confines of an F1 cockpit. The 29-year-old Pole, who won the WRC2 title this year, has just signed a deal to race for Malcolm Wilson’s M-Sport in 2014. He will drive […]